He was quoting the first line of Psalm 22. This was a common teaching tool of the time. Since everyone there (except perhaps the Romans) had memorized scripture from the age of 5 or so, all they needed to hear was the first line to have the entire passage come to mind.
Jesus was bringing this Psalm to their attention, showing them that it was He Whom the Psalm was speaking about, and thus showing them that in their sight, that scripture was being fulfilled.

NotMyOwn

Apr 13th 2009, 08:25 PM

At that time Jesus took the sin of the whole world on himself, and God being perfectly Holy had to turn His back on Him, if only for a moment.

Vhayes

Apr 13th 2009, 08:54 PM

At that time Jesus took the sin of the whole world on himself, and God being perfectly Holy had to turn His back on Him, if only for a moment.
Hence the reason the sky turned black in the middle of the day.

keck553

Apr 13th 2009, 08:55 PM

He was quoting the first line of Psalm 22. This was a common teaching tool of the time. Since everyone there (except perhaps the Romans) had memorized scripture from the age of 5 or so, all they needed to hear was the first line to have the entire passage come to mind.
Jesus was bringing this Psalm to their attention, showing them that it was He Whom the Psalm was speaking about, and thus showing them that in their sight, that scripture was being fulfilled.

Bingo.

Thanks Khatar!

th1bill

Apr 13th 2009, 09:14 PM

Kahtar has nailed it in the cebter of the bullseye!

David Taylor

Apr 13th 2009, 09:32 PM

He was quoting the first line of Psalm 22. This was a common teaching tool of the time. Since everyone there (except perhaps the Romans) had memorized scripture from the age of 5 or so, all they needed to hear was the first line to have the entire passage come to mind.
Jesus was bringing this Psalm to their attention, showing them that it was He Whom the Psalm was speaking about, and thus showing them that in their sight, that scripture was being fulfilled.

Exactly.

By Jesus quoting the 22 Psalm, it brought that entire passage to their minds, and the minds of all present....it was to show from the Psalms, where His death exactly as it was being executed, was foretold; and He was exactly whom He claimed to be.

Lars777

Apr 13th 2009, 10:58 PM

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Psalms 22:1)

and the Psalmist goes on to add,

Why art thou so far from helping me,
from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer;
and by night, but find no rest. (Psalms 22

These opening words have been called "the cry of dereliction," i.e., the cry of abandonment as the sufferer becomes aware that he is forsaken by his God.

As we know from the New Testament, Jesus uttered these words at the end of a strange period of darkness which settled upon the land. For the first three hours as he hung upon the cross the sun shone brightly and there was normal daylight.

But at high noon a strange and disquieting darkness settled upon the whole land around Jerusalem. No one has ever been able to explain it. It lasted for three hours. It was not an eclipse of the sun, because eclipses do not last that long.

There have been similar periods at other times in history. In 1780, for instance, there was a strange dark day which settled upon the New England states when for some still unexplained reason the light of the sun failed in only that particular portion of earth, so that it passed into a period of darkness in the middle of the day.

Something like that happened at Jerusalem. Notice how the Psalm reflects this. It says that the sufferer cries out in the day and in the night -- in the light and in the dark -- but still God does not answer.

So here we have the strange mystery of the abandonment of the Son of God -- what some have called "Immanuel's orphaned cry" -- "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Jesus actually spoke these words in Aramaic. Because he cried out with a loud voice, passersby misunderstood him. He said, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

When the bystanders heard the words, "Eloi, Eloi," they thought he was crying for Elijah. But he was calling out for God, from the depths of his being, because of his sense of abandonment.

The strangeness of that rejection by God is highlighted for us by his stated awareness of the faithful character of God:

Yet thou art holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In thee our fathers trusted; they trusted,
and thou didst deliver them.
To thee they cried, and were saved;
in thee they trusted, and were not disappointed. (Psalms 22:3-5)

He is remembering the history of men of faith in the past, and the fact that a faithful God never abandoned one of them.

Even though they were sinful men, God saved them when they cried out to him. "But," he says, "I am a worm, and no man." For some strange reason God is treating him differently. Even the spectators reflect that difference of treatment:

But I am a worm, and no man;
scorned by men, and despised by the people.
All who see me mock at me,
they make mouths at me, they wag their heads; [they say,]
"He committed his cause to the Lord; let him deliver him,
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!" (Psalms 22:6-8

He is treated like a despised and hated criminal, as though he had lost his right to live in human society.

Matthew records for us the fact that the crowd actually used these very words. The unthinking multitude passing by, looking at the sufferer on the cross, said, "He trusts in God; let God deliver him now," (Matthew 27:43).

What an amazing prediction this is! The very words of a multitude which could not have been controlled, and who had no intention of fulfilling prophecy, are clearly foretold.

We are faced with the strange mystery of why the Son of God was abandoned by his Father. He goes on to press the point himself. He shows us that there are no grounds for abandonment in himself:

Yet thou art he who took me from the womb;
thou didst keep me safe upon my mother's breasts.
Upon thee was I cast from my birth,
and since my mother bore me thou hast been my God.
Be not far from me,
for trouble is near and there is none to help. (Psalms 22:9-11)

How utterly forsaken he is! His friends have rejected him and fled. His disciples and family have left him alone; all have gone.

Only God is left and now he senses that God himself is forsaking him. He knows no explanation for this. He says that from the very moment of his birth he was in fellowship with God.

He was always the delight of God's heart, kept by his Father right from birth. And, you recall from the New Testament, as he began his public ministry the Father spoke from heaven and put his seal of approval upon his life, saying, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased," (Matthew 3:17b, Mark 1:11).

There is absolutely nothing in himself to merit abandonment, and yet here he is, forsaken.

In his human weakness he does not even understand it, and so he cries out this strange cry of dereliction, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Now we know, of course, that it was because he was being made an offering for the sins of the world. All the ugliness and meanness and defilement and filth of our sin was laid upon him.

apothanein kerdos

Apr 13th 2009, 11:27 PM

An excerpt from something I wrote:

Jesus was in perfect union with the Father. But look at what He cries out before He dies. “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). This is such a pain none of us can ever feel! Here is Jesus Christ, who has had a close relationship with the Father since eternity’s past, forsaken by the One He loves. As Martin Luther declared of this event, “God forsaken by God, who can understand that?” It is truly a great mystery, but who would want to understand it? Who would want to understand the separation that Christ endured on the cross?

We don’t have to though, because He did it for us. Christ endured such a separation, one that we deserved. He did this because He had taken on all of our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5-6). He had taken on our sin and the Father could not look upon Him. Look upon the cross oh fallen man and see the Trinity divided! See the fellowship broken because of you! See the Man of sorrows, naked, bruised, ashamed, and forsaken on the cross. Look upon the cross on sinful man and realize that it should have been you!

Look upon the cross and see that Christ is suffering the wrath of God, a wrath intended for you (Isaiah 53:10). Look upon the cross and see what your sins have done. Here is Christ, God in the flesh, dying for you. Our sins have angered God, our sins have brought about His just and holy wrath, but here is Christ taking it all upon Himself.

Christ cries out, asking why He has been forsaken. The darkness has covered the mountain. The climax of our fallen state has been reached. Yet, we see the light of things to come. Christ declares that it is finished (John 19:30); he then commits His spirit to the Father (Luke 23:46). Christ is reconciled again. He has completed His task, He has taken on the Fall, He has been forsaken by God, and He has been reconciled.

keck553

Apr 13th 2009, 11:31 PM

Wow.

kllkl;jhhpu'

Vhayes

Apr 13th 2009, 11:34 PM

Hey, Ak -

I can't rep you now because I did for an earlier post but this is stellar!
V

apothanein kerdos

Apr 13th 2009, 11:36 PM

Thanks Keck and Vhayes.

It's part of a book I've been working on.

See, I'm not just about the intellectual stuff in Christianity. :)

Gulah Papyrus

Apr 14th 2009, 12:10 AM

So....He did feel the spiritual separation?....or was He just fulfilling the prophecy? Or both? :confused

apothanein kerdos

Apr 14th 2009, 12:34 AM

So....He did feel the spiritual separation?....or was He just fulfilling the prophecy? Or both? :confused

I would say both. He both fulfilled the prophecy and felt the separation.

The cross is about far more than the physical pain Christ suffered. Truth be told, there are worse ways to day that are far more painful. The spiritual pain, however, cannot be felt by anyone - we must always remember that in our deepest and darkest night, Christ has been to a far darker place, so He can relate.

Watchmen

Apr 14th 2009, 12:36 AM

??? I heard it and not sure I understand the context of it.When Jesus took our sin upon Himself on the Cross, that sin separated Him from the Father.

Ethnikos

Apr 14th 2009, 02:13 AM

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Psalms 22:1). . .
. . .These opening words have been called "the cry of dereliction," i.e., the cry of abandonment as the sufferer becomes aware that he is forsaken by his God.
As we know from the New Testament, Jesus uttered these words at the end of a strange period of darkness which settled upon the land. For the first three hours as he hung upon the cross the sun shone brightly and there was normal daylight.
But at high noon a strange and disquieting darkness settled upon the whole land around Jerusalem. No one has ever been able to explain it. It lasted for three hours. It was not an eclipse of the sun, because eclipses do not last that long. . . .
. . . So here we have the strange mystery of the abandonment of the Son of God -- what some have called "Immanuel's orphaned cry" -- "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
Jesus actually spoke these words in Aramaic. Because he cried out with a loud voice, passersby misunderstood him. He said, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?
When the bystanders heard the words, "Eloi, Eloi," they thought he was crying for Elijah. But he was calling out for God, from the depths of his being, because of his sense of abandonment. . . .
He is remembering the history of men of faith in the past, and the fact that a faithful God never abandoned one of them. . . .
He is treated like a despised and hated criminal, as though he had lost his right to live in human society. . . .
We are faced with the strange mystery of why the Son of God was abandoned by his Father. He goes on to press the point himself. He shows us that there are no grounds for abandonment in himself:. . .
. . . There is absolutely nothing in himself to merit abandonment, and yet here he is, forsaken.
In his human weakness he does not even understand it, and so he cries out this strange cry of dereliction, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"This all sounds well and good and probably goes along with a lot of well respected Christian Teaching. I ran across this same question but from a very different angle. (it had to do with whether Jesus was god and who was he talking to) I am not going into all that foolishness but I would like to say something about the character of Jesus. We had a little discussion in Sabbath school class at church two days ago and people were talking about whether Jesus had faith in the plan that he was to carry out concerning the cross. Everyone agreed that he had faith. So where does the problem come up in this story where it seems Jesus was having doubts about how things were going? My answer would be there was no problem. What? You may ask, there was a problem right here in the fact that Jesus is dying! Did Jesus not predict his own death and how it was going to happen? Yes. Was there a good reason to think Jesus all of a sudden found a special concern for his life that he had just ignored earlier?
Look at what is going on here in this scene. Jesus is forgiving Pilot and the thieves and everyone else and asking God to forgive them. He is talking to his disciple to take care of his mother. So, when God makes a tremendous manifestation of his anger in the darkness and lightnings and earthquakes and whatever else was going on, Jesus is concerned about Israel being forsaken by God out of punishment for this horrible deed of treachery against the Son of God.
Jesus is here imitating Moses when God was about to destroy Israel after He let them out of Egypt and then Israel rebelled against Him. Jesus is interceding on behalf of God's people, even though at the time they were not playing the part. Notice how the darkness leaves after this and it was not something against Jesus but against Israel.

Wesley’s Notes
22:1 My God - Who art my friend and father, though now thou frownest upon me. The repetition denotes, the depth of his distress, which made him cry so earnestly. Forsaken - Withdrawn the light of thy countenance, the supports and comforts of thy spirit, and filled me with the terrors of thy wrath: this was in part verified in David, but much more fully in Christ. Roaring - My out - cries forced from me, by my miseries.
Notice the part about the "terrors". Who was terrified? Jesus could see who was terrified, as they fleed the wrath of God that he knew there was no running from.

My heart's Desire

Apr 14th 2009, 04:54 AM

In becoming our High Priest, didn't Jesus as a man also have to suffer the feeling/fact of men who are rejected by God in their unsaved state, so that He could know what man experiences? After all, The Lord hadn't known or experienced what it meant to be separated from the Father, as unsaved man is.

Ethnikos

Apr 14th 2009, 10:00 AM

In becoming our High Priest, didn't Jesus as a man also have to suffer the feeling/fact of men who are rejected by God in their unsaved state, so that He could know what man experiences? After all, The Lord hadn't known or experienced what it meant to be separated from the Father, as unsaved man is.
I can not think of a reason why, exactly. Maybe I should get into some of the foolishness that got me thinking along this line. These people calling themselves anti-trinitarians claimed that Jesus putting himself into this role of a play and despairing of his rejection, was proof that he was not really God.
Jesus did have a fully human nature and had to experience a full range of emotions that would have been normal for a given situation. I have to think that what he was feeling at this time was a steadfast determination that led to a feeling of victory.

Psalms 77:

9Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah. 10And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.
We do have a high priest who is our intercessor but he is of a higher order than anyone in that position in the past. Jesus said, "Glorify me as I was glorified when I was with you." What did he mean? What was his way of being glorified? Jesus showed his true nature in this experience and could not be separated from God, in the fact that he was God, and that can not be in any way avoided because it is the very premise of his incarnation. Pilot was struck with fear at the responses to his questions of Jesus. He had a realization that he may very well have been talking to someone who was the very representation of God on earth. He was desperate to get out from under the condemnation he would have been deserving of if he was responsible for his death. We as believing Christians should have at least the understanding of this man who was not really a believer but could recognize what he saw for what it was.

9Marksfan

Apr 14th 2009, 11:00 AM

This all sounds well and good and probably goes along with a lot of well respected Christian Teaching.

If you don't believe that Christ was dying as our substitute, separated from God as He bore our sin so that we would NEVER be separated, then how will we expect to stand before a holy, perfect God, with our sin not dealt with?

I ran across this same question but from a very different angle. (it had to do with whether Jesus was god and who was he talking to) I am not going into all that foolishness but I would like to say something about the character of Jesus. We had a little discussion in Sabbath school class at church two days ago and people were talking about whether Jesus had faith in the plan that he was to carry out concerning the cross. Everyone agreed that he had faith. So where does the problem come up in this story where it seems Jesus was having doubts about how things were going? My answer would be there was no problem. What? You may ask, there was a problem right here in the fact that Jesus is dying! Did Jesus not predict his own death and how it was going to happen? Yes. Was there a good reason to think Jesus all of a sudden found a special concern for his life that he had just ignored earlier?
Look at what is going on here in this scene. Jesus is forgiving Pilot

Where do you read that?

and the thieves

We read of only one thief being forgiven (the "you" in Greek is singular).

and everyone else

Who else?

and asking God to forgive them.

That's quite different from Him forgiving them.

He is talking to his disciple to take care of his mother. So, when God makes a tremendous manifestation of his anger in the darkness and lightnings and earthquakes and whatever else was going on, Jesus is concerned about Israel being forsaken by God out of punishment for this horrible deed of treachery against the Son of God.

Man, that's a new one!

Jesus is here imitating Moses when God was about to destroy Israel after He let them out of Egypt and then Israel rebelled against Him. Jesus is interceding on behalf of God's people, even though at the time they were not playing the part.

Why then does He say "me" and not "them"?

Notice how the darkness leaves after this and it was not something against Jesus but against Israel.

Christ died for thr sins of the world, not his own, for He had none - do you believe this?

Notice the part about the "terrors". Who was terrified? Jesus could see who was terrified, as they fleed the wrath of God that he knew there was no running from.

I believe that Jesus feared as a man as He faced the wrath of God in all its intensity - on our behalf - that's why he was so overwhelmed in Gethsemane.

Ethnikos

Apr 14th 2009, 01:51 PM

You are getting pretty technical here. Let me see if I can answer some of your questions. I am not trying to make up some sort of new docrine or something I think people have to believe in. I was trying to present what I came up with while getting involved in an ongoing battle over on some other site over the trinity and all that. Apparently the time of the year got some people thinking about the crucifixion of Jesus as an opportunity to throw more fuel on the fire.
Have you ever wondered how a man could possibly bear the weight of all the sins of the world without being instantly snuffed out? Well obviously an ordinary man could not. That is why God had to come to earth as a man, because it took the God part of his nature to actually carry this act out.
I do believe that Jesus died a substitutionary death for us. The human nature part of Jesus obviously suffered a seperation from God because the body of Christ went through actual death.
The thing about Pilot is a deduction based on the facts presented. Jesus says his sin was less than that of the ones who had handed him over. Pilot believed Jesus was some kind of divinity, which was more than the Jews were willing to admit. Jesus made no attempt to convence Pilot to release him or explain anything more than a couple of admissions. Then Jesus says “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” That seems rather all inclusive. He did not say, “ forgive those few who seem kind of nicer than the worse of them.”

Man, that's a new one!
My point is that he was concerned more about other people than he was of himself.
Luke 23:
28But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.
29For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.
30Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.

Why then does He say "me" and not "them"?
Because he was quoting Psalms.

Christ died for thr sins of the world, not his own, for He had none - do you believe this? Yes.

I believe that Jesus feared as a man as He faced the wrath of God in all its intensity - on our behalf - that's why he was so overwhelmed in Gethsemane.
I agree, and I also think that he had been able to get past that fear, once he came out to present himself to the group sent to arrest him.